It brings out the worst in us. We certainly cannot expect much agreement as we all come from so many perspective. But discourse gets ugly fast and we are so easily drawn into it. Our buttons get pushed and some of us cant resist responding. And it goes on and on. I doubt anything is really accomplished other than damage to our souls.

So I am going to try my best not to argue. There are very few things I actually know anything about anyway. We get entangled with people on this forum that we would usually walk away from in person.

So I will disengage from argument and post only what can be peaceful and helpful to others. Life is too short to try to change others on a forum such as this. I will share my opinions if asked and read others, but no more debate for me.

This is a good time to remind everyone that this forum used to be so much better when we had real live on-the-job moderators who enforced strict rules. We got along. There were still arguments, but we had to make them according to higher standards of civility. Bring back the moderators! Bring back the moderators! (continue chant…)

If they are here, they don’t seem to be imposing any standards of civility on posters. People are openly insulting each other. Remember when they used to intervene and say ‘discuss the points and not each other?’

Based on their level of involvement, I would guess that the moderators were paid staff. It is hard to get that kind of quality work from volunteers. My guess is that CAF just ran out of money. That is why I have been floating the idea of having us all chip in and hire them back. I don’t know how much it would take, but I would be willing to pay something for the privilege of participating in a moderated forum.

I haven’t used this site much over the course of 2018, so I can’t specify if things have gotten worse, but there were nonstop arguments and insults back in the last few months of the old CAF World News.